Pawnee Centennial: The 15 Most Essential Parks and Rec Episodes

Parks and Recreation hits its 100th episode tonight, a laudable landmark for a comedy that's heartwarming, funny, and one of the smartest comedies on television to boot. While it's a eminently binge-worthy show, 100 episodes is still an awful lot of television. If you want to check out the show's highlights -- either to relive the magic or get up to speed before tonight's big episode -- then we have a simple 15-point plan for you. In the gallery above, we've collected clips and need-to-know info on the 15 funniest, more charming and memorable episodes from the last six seasons at the Pawnee, Indiana Parks and Recreation department. Pretend they're a plate of waffles and dive in now.

Practice Date (Season 2, Episode 4)

Also Known As: The One With Duke Silver

This episode happened so long ago it almost seems quaint now. It takes place long before Ben (Adam Scott) shows up, back when Leslie (Amy Poehler) was still unsure how to date. So when she finally gets the chance to go out with a guy – Louis C.K. in his wonderful turn as cop Dave Sanderson – she's so nervous she asks Ann (Rashida Jones) to go on a practice date with her. Aside from solidifying the fact that Ann and Leslie were Parks' best couple early on, "Practice Date" also was the one where everyone tried to dig up dirt on each other and we found out Ron (Nick Offerman) had not one but two ex-wives named Tammy. But the biggest revelation of all was the revelation of Ron's secret musical alter ego: Duke Silver. Can anyone even remember a time when we didn't know Swanson could play jazz sax with the best of them? No, we cannot. —Angela Watercutter

Hunting Trip (Season 2, Episode 10)

Also Known As: The One Where Ron Gets Shot in the Head

While there's a lot of stellar comedy in this episode – Ron gets shot in the head and self-medicates with Scotch – "Hunting Trip" is all about heart. Not only was there killer group bonding -- including Leslie taking the fall for a certain accidental shooting -- it was also the start of Andy and April's coupling. "When people ask me to send them scripts, for example, of 'What's an episode I should read?' I always go to like one or two and I always send them 'Hunting Trip,'" said the show's script supervisor Greg Levine. "I think for me that's when the show took on fully the energy it has now." And if your heart doesn't melt when Ron tells Leslie "you're a real stand-up guy," you're not human. —Angela Watercutter

Ron & Tammy: Part 2 (Season 3, Episode 4)

Also Known As: The One Where Ron and Tammy 2 Go to Jail

Ron is the epitome of stoic, at least until one of his many ex-wives named Tammy come around. When Tammy 2 (Megan Mullally) is around that side is sexual, and in Ron & Tammy: Part 2 it's out of control. They run all over town, get re-married, get cornrows, and ultimately wind up in jail, where they continue to suck face. Mullally and Nick Offerman are husband-and-wife IRL, a fact that seems to enable them to go for broke in ways most co-stars wouldn't. And probably shouldn't. —Angela Watercutter

Soda Tax (Season 5, Episode 2)

Also Known As: The One with Child-Sized Sodas

Let's face it, sometimes our favorite episodes of television aren't necessarily the ones that objectively make us laugh the hardest; often they're the ones with the jokes with the most endurance and adaptability into our own lives. Take "Soda Tax," for example: an episode, on the surface, about Leslie pushing a tax on fountain sodas with the city council in an attempt to lower the raging obesity rates in Pawnee. Funny, sure, but also unforgettable. After watching this, it's hard to see "fitness-enhanced water" without thinking of Sweetums' WaterZero, or look at massive sodas without thinking of Paunch Burger's "child-size" cup: "roughly the size of a two-year-old child, if the child were liquified." The horror is real, my friends, and this episode is a classic. —Devon Maloney

Andy and April's Fancy Party (Season 3, Episode 9)

Also Known As: The One Where April and Andy Get Married

April and Andy (Chris Pratt) are the enfants terrible of the show, and until this point, we'd watched their budding romance with equal parts amusement and horror. Less than a month in, they throw a fancy dinner party – catered semi-voluntarily by their friends and colleagues – which turns out to be their wedding. By all sane standards, this should be a terrible idea, and Leslie, as the increasingly panicked voice of reason, objects strenuously, but ultimately, the kids get to make their own choices and grow up.

The adults, meanwhile, begin to find their own footing: Leslie finally asks Ben to stay in Pawnee; and Ann, who's been having conflicted feelings about Andy all season, gets a surprisingly civil lesson on standing on her own two feet (and basic home repair) from Ron. The moral? No one's really got it together, but, as Andy explains, life is short – and there's no reason to spend it anywhere but exactly where you want to be. —Rachel Edidin

Eagleton (Season 3, Episode 12)

Also Known As: The One With Parker Posey

Out of the zillion places the creators of Parks and Recreation have found inspiration for happenings in Pawnee, perhaps the inside-jokiest is the one that inspired "Eagleton," the episode in which Leslie has to confront her backstabbing, snobby ex-best friend (Parker Posey) from Eagleton. The filthy-rich rival town next door, Eagletown erects a fence that splits a shared park along city lines to keep out the Pawnee riffraff. As any intermediate IMDb trivia prowler knows, Parks and Rec writers originally based some of their characters on the employees of the parks and rec department in El Segundo, California — a town in which this writer was born and raised. While the individual character parallels themselves aren't clear, the Pawnee-Eagleton rivalry sure is a dead-ringer for the age-old resentments that have long boiled between the small, Mayberry-esque El Segundo and its wealthier neighbor to the south, Manhattan Beach. Of course, it's exaggerated to hell, but it sure is doubly great to watch all those soy verbena candle jokes and know they come from a very real place. —Devon Maloney

The Fight (Season 3, Episode 13)

Also Known As: The One Where Everyone Gets Drunk

In an attempt to drum up support for his new lifestyle liqueur SnakeJuice, Tom convinces the whole Parks and Rec gang to go to the Snakehole lounge and act like his new drink is cray-zay. Obviously, everyone gets obliterated and hijinks ensue, including one of the best drunk-cast montages ever on TV. Amy Poehler has taken lead on writing only a few episodes of Parks, but this is one of them – and it shows. She not only writes to all of her players' greatest strengths (see Tom's barrage of awful business ideas and April and Andy's role-playing) but also adds heart; the central drama of the episode is the argument between Leslie and Ann, who had been drifting apart. They make up, obviously, thanks to a little help from Ben and bond anew thanks to some girlfriends hangover vomiting time. —Angela Watercutter

Li'l Sebastian (Season 3, Episode 16)

Also Known As: The One Where Ron's Eyebrows Get Singed Off by a Fireball, Or the One With Detlef Schrempf

The lovable, late mini-horse known as Li'l Sebastian needs little introduction; even if you only know a handful of Parks and Rec episodes, chances are you know this one, in which Leslie orchestrates an elaborate funeral service for Pawnee's biggest littlest celebrity, who has died of old age. (Secondarily, it's also the one in which Jean-Ralphio and Tom Haverford hire retired basketball legend Detlef Schrempf to stand in one place and shoot baskets at their new ambiguous lifestyle business for practically no reason.) For the memorial, Andy writes and performs a now-legendary goodbye song called "5,000 Candles in the Wind, and Ron nearly dies from a fireball created by an eternal flame. Li'l Sebastian is a rare topic on which almost everyone (except maybe Ben) is unanimous in their feelings.

—Devon Maloney

Pawnee Rangers (Season 4, Episode 4)

Also Known As: The One With "Treat Yo Self"

There's a lot going on during "Pawnee Rangers," so much that if you split it into two episodes, each one would still be really good episodes of television. The main storyline is that of Leslie's ever-evolving quest for gender equality, this time in the form of her youth group of Pawnee Goddesses, the female equivalent of the boys-only Pawnee Rangers. But while Leslie is out in the "wilderness" tempting the Pawnee Ranger boys away from their cold campouts with puppy parties and cookies, Donna and Tom enjoying the annual tradition "Treat Yo Self," when they lavish gifts and acts of self-care ("Clothes! Fragrances! Massages! Mimosas! Fiiiine leather goods.") upon themselves in a full 24 hours of extravagance. Thanks to this episode, fans will never again be without a whipping boy on which to blame their hilarious credit card statements. Thank you, Treat Yo Self. And damn you! —Devon Maloney

Galentine's Day (Season 2, Episode 16)

Also Known As: The One Where Leslie Invents the Best Holiday Ever and Everyone Breaks Up

One of the best things about Parks and Recreation has always been Leslie's friendships with other women. Female frenemies are the bread and butter of sitcoms, but the friendships on Parks & Rec are sincere and enthusiastic and genuine and celebratory in a way you don't often get to see on network TV. Galentine's Day – the holiday, at least – is a celebration of exactly that: the day before Valentine's Day, when Leslie gets all the women in her life together to celebrate them and their relationships. The rest of the episode is mostly about cutting away the dead wood of failing relationships – Leslie and the unmemorable Justin; Tom (Aziz Ansari) and Wendy; April (Aubrey Plaza) and Derek; and soon, the show hints, Ann and Mark. Valentine's Day itself is rocky, and romantic relationships may come and go, but Galentine's Day is forever. —Rachel Edidin

At the beginning of season, Ben and Leslie ended their clandestine relationship so that Leslie could run for city council without threat of a scandal, and for seven episodes, we watched them go, heartbroken, through the motions of trying to date other people and work together as colleagues. Finally, in "Smallest Park," Leslie comes to a conclusion: She's not going to choose between the man she's clearly still in love with and the government seat she's always wanted. She and Ben decide to get back together, face the inevitable scandal, and ride out the repercussions together.

In any other show, this would be about Leslie choosing romance over career. In Parks & Rec., it's about her choosing a life and career with integrity, and without sacrificing the things that matter to her; and doing it with a guy who will never fail to love and respect her for it. Ultimately, it's Ben, not Leslie, who gives up a career for their relationship: After a day of hearings, he quietly takes full responsibility for the wrongdoing and resigns from the City Manager's office, leaving Leslie free to continue the work she loves, and proving to a protective audience that he doesn't just love our girl -- he deserves her. —Rachel Edidin

Halloween Surprise (Season 5, Episode 5)

Also Known As: The One With the Proposal

"Halloween Surprise" is one of the greatest fake-outs in Parks and Recreation history. Ben, who has been working on political campaigns in Washington, D.C., tells Leslie that he's considering taking another job in Florida, even though she's found the house she wants to share with him. Then, he surprises her at said house and asks her to marry him. Cue: Tears. Oh, this is also the one where Ron takes Diane's kids trick-or-treating and Jerry has a very gassy heart attack that everyone wants to call a "fart attack." —Angela Watercutter

Ben's Parents (Season 5, Episode 6)

Also Known As: The One With Ben's Parents

Officially engaged and back together in Pawnee, Leslie and Ben throw an engagement party for their friends and families. Unfortunately, the latter includes Ben's estranged parents, and Leslie's attempts to calm them down with a hand-made unity quilt end with both the party and the quilt in tatters. Meanwhile, in keeping with the theme of dropping dead weight, Tom finally cuts business ties with the wonderfully terrible John-Ralphio, winning Ron's respect in the process. It's a really funny episode and a good reminder of why we love Leslie and Ben as they stand together in the face of Hurricane Wyatt. —Rachel Edidin

Women in Garbage (Season 5, Episode 11)

Also Known As: The One Where Ron is Terrorized By Babysits Diane's Daughters

Not only is this episode one of those rare occasions when Ron expresses feelings of any positive nature — this time, accidentally confessing to Ann that he loves Diane (Lucy Lawless) -- it's also the quintessential Leslie-versus-the old-fashioned small-town scenario. In crusading to organize a gender equality commission and increase the number of women in Pawnee's city government, she and April find themselves proving to the town garbage collectors that its lack of female employees is sexist, that women can do the dirty job just as ably as the reigning male collectors. Of course, it takes the transport of a massive fridge with several extra sets of female hands to do it, but the moment of hardcore lady-bonding between Leslie and April (especially the gift box of trash April sends her at the end).

—Devon Maloney

Leslie vs. April (Season 5, Episode 7)

Also Known As: The One With Joe Biden

Ben and Leslie may be engaged, but even he knows that there's one man who he'll never be able to replace in her heart: Vice President Joe Biden. Leslie's infatuation with Biden has been a running joke throughout the show — he even got his own square on the Knope-Wyatt Unity Quilt in "Ben's Parents" — and on his last day in Washington, Ben calls in "a few hundred favors" to give Leslie the ultimate anniversary gift: a brief meeting with the veep himself. It's every bit as charming and bizarre as you might hope: Leslie is flustered and overjoyed, and Biden is flattered if somewhat baffled by her affection. For a gag that's gotten four seasons of buildup, it's a heartily satisfying and suitably hilarious payoff. —Rachel Edidin